Product description

Writing with his usual grace and fluency, Jonathan Sacks moves beyond the tired arguments of militant atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens, to explore how religion has always played a valuable part in human culture and far from being dismissed as redundant, must be allowed to temper and develop scientific understanding in order for us to be fully human. Ranging around the world to draw comparisons from different cultures, and delving deep into the history of language and of western civilisation, Jonathan Sacks shows how the predominance of science-oriented thinking is embedded deeply even in our religious understanding, and calls on us to recognise the centrality of relationship to true religion, and thus to see how this core value of relationship is essential if we are to avoid the natural tendency for science to rule our lives rather than fulfilling its promise to set us free.

Author information

Rabbi Lord Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the UK & Commonwealth, is admired by non-Jews as well as Jews, by secular as well as religious thinkers, and is equally at home in the university and the yeshiva. Lord Sacks read Philosophy at Cambridge before pursuing postgraduate studies at New College, Oxford and King's College, London. The Chief Rabbi is a highly respected writer and broadcaster, with a regular column in The Times and frequent appearances on Radio 4's Thought for the Day. He is the author of twenty books, including The Great Partnership, The Dignity of Difference and Future Tense.

Review quote

The most persuasive argument for religious belief I have read. Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4 Start the Week An intelligent, optimistic credo that allows for the happy coexistence of science and religion The Times One of the most engaging thinkers of our time The Times Britain's most authentically prophetic voice The Daily Telegraph Jonathan Sacks's voice carries unique moral authority far beyond the Jewish community The Tablet